carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. we are inside the magazine's newsroom inside new york. coming up in this issue, how to make millions from snapchat. also, software helping donald trump get ahead and the hollywood divorce lawyer that everybody wants. ♪ carol: i am here with ellen pollack, the editor of "limerick businessweek," and this is the room where you put the magazine together. ellen: it is. during the course of any week, we put layouts on the walls and this room gets unbelievably crowded with people in our department and editors and we all go over all of the layouts and discuss what they look like, , how they should change.

and how changes in the storyline are going to change the layout. so, it is a lot of people in this room, hashing out problems, having a good time, too. carol: you put magazine puzzle together right now. that includes what is in the future section. this week, you talk about valeant's ceo, he was in the news a lot this week. ellen: he was in the news a lot this week. if you remember last year, he kind of vanished after a scandal involving valeant raising drug prices a lot. it caught the attention of hillary clinton. and it became kind of this big, sort of public outrage over raising prices, partly because of martin skrelli, who was indicted for other reasons. and, then he got sick and went , on medical leave and vanished. this week, he reappeared, he went back to work, and lo and behold, almost immediately, they announced that there was an sec investigation into the company. carol: it is a story that just gets more and more interesting.

another story that i think is very interesting, and you have it in the company section this week, and that is etsy. it is kind of growing up finally. ellen: it is growing up. it went public. they have to figure out how to go from a platform that just sold homemade stuff to factory -made items. originally it was only about -- carol: so the homemade stuff, right? ellen: this could be made on etsy. this is the one i made into the magazine, and this is the one that did not make it into the magazine. but what we were trying to show was that items like this are now that pre-made. they're coming off of a a manufacturing line. and we use this to sort of show that in the magazine. and for this one. this sweet face did not quite make it. carol: it could be something that's on snapchat. that is your cover story this week.

talk to us about it. snapchat has been around for a while, and you decided to put it on the cover. ellen: snapchat is been around for a while. a year or so ago, they announced they were going to have a whole new business model, and people kind of laughed. it has just completely taken off during super bowl weekend this year. pepsi was on, amazon was on, budweiser, and they were all paying $1 million to be on snapchat. it is sort of a platform that you need to know about but you do not understand, and we explain it all for you. carol: speaking of snapchat, i spoke to the reporter who wrote the story. reporter: snapchat has been -- snapchat has 100 million daily users which actually , sounds quite a bit smaller than facebook. facebook has one billion daily users. what is so amazing about snapchat is the audience. they are very young. they are very engaged. it is basically just the ideal

audience for advertisers. carol: and advertises arer -- and advertisers are paying up to be a part of it? reporter: the money is pretty surprising. there were rumors in the early days that advertisers paying tv-like rates. it may not be that crazy expensive, but the money is very real. for the super bowl, for instance, there were four major advertisers, well-known brands, and all together, they paid over $1 million to be in one snapchat super bowl story. so, it is not quite super bowl ad money, but it is not quite super bowl tv money, but it is real and definitely growing. carol: it is interesting you say that. talk to me, you mention about how many people a day. the audiences in some cases, depending on who is on snapchat, some of those folks, they have some pretty big audiences, comparable to what you see on television? reporter: yes. big network sitcoms have sometimes tens of millions of viewers, but what happens is, many of those viewers are very old.

not very old, but older. carol: old enough. [laughter] reporter then, if you are an : advertiser trying to reach people in their 20's, or late teens, it is very hard. and so, snapchat comes in and they have 86% of their audience under 35 years old. it is very clear that these are young people that are not necessarily watching television, so advertisers look at it, and even though they do not maybe totally understand it because it is so new, it seems valuable. carol: we have not mentioned the founder and the ceo, evan steagall. he is such a big part in terms of them momentum behind us. reporter: it's a great story, and what is kind of amazing about it is that this company has sort of been mocked at every turn. so, originally snapchat was kind , of dismissed as kind of a thing for sending lewd pictures or what have you. , carol: we all remember that.

reporter: that could not be a major advertising vehicle, that is for sex. no advertiser would want to be associated with that. and then, they created this sort of media play where they were charging very high advertising rates, and he was made fun of for that. he was reportedly offered something like $3 billion from facebook, turned it down. and yet, despite all of these sort of seemingly counterintuitive, not quite straight down the middle moves, snapchat is doing amazingly well. and you know, this media play, which looked insane, like why would you want to read the wall street journal next to your sex? [laughter] first of all, there's a lot more happening than dirty pictures. and secondly, apparently, these people do want to read the wall street journal and there is on snapchat along with cosmopolitan, vice, and a bunch of sort of mix of new media brands and old media brands. carol: speaking of reading if

, you want to read about the king of snapchat, the electorate or article in bloomberg businessweek this week. we will not give it away. i am here once again what the magazine's editor ellen pollock. something that caught my attention is bill collectors in russia. this is really scary. ellen: it is really scary. so russia is in a devastating recession. mostly because of the price of oil dropping so dramatically. that means that people are in tremendous consumer debt. something like 1.2 trillion rubles, which is a lot of debt. but, even if you are just a little bit in debt, you might find yourself coming up against these very scary bill collectors. you can come out of your house and find on your car, debtor written in huge graffiti with your apartment number on it. they'll write on your apartment walls, and they have even thrown bombs and hurt children. carol: destroying baby carriages. ellen: it is crazy. it is really, really rough.

and some of these cases have been prosecuted, but a lot of them haven't. so it is likely to go on for a while. carol: interesting, thank you so much. coming up, the software that may donald trump's run for the white house possible. and the many donald trump like politicians in power across europe. also a divorce attorney every , hollywood star wants, and what is the worst business decision you have ever made? we will talk about all of that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. in the magazine's opening remarks this week, reporter stephen ferris writes, you're it -- europe may sound horrified by the rise of donald trump, but the truth is, he'll be right at

home in paris or berlin. after all, europe has given rise to nationalistic politicians such as jean marie le pen, and so promoting media personalities. in fact, trump's anti-immigrant brand is shared by numerous political parties across the continent from finland to greece to switzerland. in other words, europeans want -- europeans may want to remember the old proverb " do not throw stones in glass houses. but will trump's movement have legs in america? you can read the article about that in bloomberg businessweek. donald trump stays in the spotlight in this week's politics and policies section. would you believe trump's political rise is partly thanks to a software design by antiwar activists? the software is called nation builder. i spoke to reporter adam such -- i spoke to adam in san francisco. adam: nation builder is a software that serves as kind of a digital hub for a campaign.

so you can build a website, send , e-mail, monitor social networking, and you can ingest all of this other kind of data that campaigns nowadays gather on voters. and basically the thing you are , trying to do here is put together a profile on voters so that you can appeal to them about things that they care about in the hopes that they will vote for you, donate some of their time, give money. many different things. it is a way which campaigns can slice and dice the electorate to their benefit. carol: talk to us about the individual who actually put this together. because he has an interesting background. adam: yeah jim gilliam who , created nation builder is a really fascinating person. he grew up in a christian fundamentalist family. he belonged to jerry falwell's churches. and he went to liberty university in virginia.

and then, when he was at school he became ill and got sick and , his mother at the time also got sick. and he ended up losing his faith and going to work in software. he was always kind of a techie. carol: yeah. adam he started to work for a : startup. carol: you know, when i started reading your story, adam, i thought, this is going to be for outliers, big campaigns are not going to get involved, but actually big campaigns like donald trump, are using this. adam: campaigns like barack obama's in 2008, 2012, really, the build mostly, they spend a lot of money to build customized software to do all of these different things. and so here, what nation builder has done, is sort of build a turnkey approach to this. it is not as sophisticated as what you can build with an unlimited budget that a lot of these presidential campaigns have, but it does give you a lot of these capabilities that just 10 years ago, or a few years ago were not possible.

carol: speaking of innovative technology, in the company and industry section in this week's "bloomberg businessweek," dana holding's about one of google's next big ideas. self driving cars seeing big demand from senior citizens. ♪ dana: inspiration for the story came from google. i was in detroit in january for the international auto show and i went to a presentation that the chief executive of the self driving car project gave, and he talked at length about how google is really trying to develop this technology with stranded seniors in mind. and that was kind of the genesis for the story, and then i discover that all of the automakers are basically doing the same thing. really researching how the elderly live, and what their mobility needs are. carol: have the automakers, have google figured out what the size of this market might be? dana: i think it is pretty significant. we have 43 million baby boomers in the united states already. and they are aging at a rapid pace.

and it will be a pretty significant check of the population by 2030, which is the timeframe that a lot of people are looking at for when self driving cars will be on the market. and i think for those of us to do drive, car keys of always represented independence, when you lose your ability to drive, your quality-of-life really suffers. particularly if you live in a rural community. carol: do we have to be worried about adoption rates? you highlight some questions for baby boomers, and then wanting to adopt self driving cars? dana: nobody has really set up on a business model yet. it is not clear if the elderly will actually be purchasing these cars or if it will be a , ridership model. one example might be that the retirement community that currently has a bus driver to take their residents to doctors appointments, maybe they will use a self driving car instead. so, i think we're still waiting for the business models to be hashed out. carol: waiting for the business models, also waiting for the cars to actually hit the road. do they have any idea when this will happen? dana: i think the technology is

here. the question is the regulatory and insurance issues that need to be ironed out before this can be adopted on a wide scale. between 2020 and 2030, you are going to see a lot of activity. carol: time for a gut check. what is the worst business decision that you have ever made? that is a survey and the magazines etc. section this week. the editor joins us with more. you guys devote a whole page to it. what was the worst idea that summary had? brett: to be successful business means that you failed a few times. we did an informal survey with entrepreneurs and we ask them a question. the first thing we learned as a woman who tried to do a kid hair care line, originally packaged the materials in a see-through bottle, which he thought was great, everybody else advised against it because when the media went to go photograph the bottle, they cannot actually read any of the text. it cost her $75,000. that was obviously a big mistake. another mistake we learned is that when you are actually in business with something that is kind of trendy, you do not want

to sink all of the profits that you make back into the craze because when the craze dies down, you'll be stuck with a lot of cash tied up and stuff that nobody wants anymore. carol: check out the survey on this week's "bloomberg businessweek." coming up, biotech is a sugar daddy and his name is alaska. plus, the app will make your divorce a little less stressful, at least on your wallet. and the do's and don'ts of karaoke with coworkers. it is all in this week passed issue of "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. in the companies and industry

section of this week's "bloomberg businessweek," reporter donnie bloom field tells us why alaska's $50 billion wealth fund is showing money on startups, specifically biotech startups. hey donnie, you write about alaska being a biotech sugar daddy. what is going on? donnie: so, alaska made its money from oil, obviously starting in the 1960's. , they got a $50 billion sovereign wealth fund now, but what is interesting is that in the past couple of years they have been throwing this money into biotech in somewhat risky early-stage companies, and throwing a lot of money, even up to $150 million plus into a single company. carol: that is a lot of money. has it made sense for alaska to spend their money in this way? donnie: well, one of the things they like about it is that these investments are liquid, so they actually make it a high return in the long run by getting more a company and taking some of the risk that other investors are not willing to take. they made an investment in a

company called juneau therapeutics. name, by the way, is not a coincidence. that investment has turned out really well. they invested $129 million between 2013 and 2014. now they control about 25% of , the company and that is a billion dollar plus stake right now. so that investment has turned out very well for them. to be seen about whether these other investments in biotech companies will turn out quite so well. carol: there are a few other biotech companies. who are they that they have invested in? donnie: kodiak and denali. carol: i like the alaska connection. [laughter] donnie: you may notice the alaska connection. all of them do have an alaska theme. juneau is the capital of alaska. denali is the tallest mountain and kodiak is the brown bear of , alaska. so clearly they like having , these companies when they invest that much money in them. kind of as an inside joke. carol: alaska with the oil

prices coming down, they have had some financial problems. let's get to some of the lawmakers, regulators noticing money being made in biotech. donnie: yeah, they noticed just how much cash they have in the fund. right now, the governor said that even if they fired every single state employee, they would still have a budget shortfall. so, they are incredibly desperate for money, and they're thinking about possibly tapping the funds for a couple billion dollars a year. right now, part of it is used to kind of give money to alaskans, just as a kind of handout for living in alaska. and of course for reinvesting, but it looks like the governor and potentially the legislator is considering tapping it, just to make the math work. carol: that was bloomberg businessweek's donnie bloomfield. back once again with editor ellen pollack, and there many more must reads in the magazine, and there's a great payment app. tell us about it. ellen: this an application for divorce couples and i do not know why it was not created before. it allows parents to keep track of who is spending what on their

kids. [laughter] it is very clever. it means that you do not have to speak to your ex, which for some people is extremely important. carol: limit the conversation. ellen: limit the conversation. and you know who spent money on dance classes versus who spent money on french classes, and there is no mixing it up. it is there and you do not have to fight about it. carol: that's great, limit interaction. we can do about divorce without talking about a story in a magazine, talking about a divorce attorney, laura wasser, well-known in hollywood, everybody wants her when they need her. ellen: this is a divorce lawyer who is in demand constantly in hollywood. carol: high profile names have used her. ellen: high profile names. britney spears is and this is one. the story that tells you the secrets of hollywood divorce. it is a business story. it is all driven by money. of course. and she tells you in the story, all kinds of secrets that it never would have occurred to you. for example, i will just give

you one or two. there is a reason that most hollywood divorces take place in march. and that is because it is after the academy awards, and people don't want to walk on the red carpet without someone. and then there is another reason, which i won't explain why hollywood divorces come in groups. that you have to read the story for. but it is really inside a world, big-money world, that you know nothing about. carol: ellen, who knew they were -- who knew there were so many interesting nuances when it comes to hollywood divorces? a great read. one more thing we want to talk about, karaoke. i want to bring in sam grobart. you actually looked at karaoke with a lot of businesses and workers, they go out and have fun. sam: it is an opportunity to have fun, it is an opportunity to boost morale. carol: but you can make mistakes. sam: for sure. doing karaoke with your colleagues. carol: have you done it?

sam: we are working on it. we are working on it. alcohol helps. some people are not necessarily naturally inclined to doing karaoke, but maybe after a couple of drinks, they are a little more open to the suggestion than they would have been when they were stone cold sober. carol: what about songs? i'm not a great person karaoke, but are there certain songs you should never sing? sam: i would argue that there are songs that have long instrumental breaks, because you are never really sure to do. and you definitely want to avoid obscure, personal favorites. it is an opportunity to pick some crowdpleasers. so, go with "we built this city." go with a song by journey. go with freedom 90 by george michael don't pick a deep cut. from the smashing pumpkins album that only you love that nobody else will appreciate. [laughter] carol: what about if you're really good at singing, do have to play nice? sam: yes, if you went to juilliard or tish in another

life and you still can sing , along to the entire album of "chorus line," you might want to kind of play down a little bit. you don't to be too much of a show off. sort of the same rules as an work, you want to get along and have a good time but do not want to take yourself too seriously. carol: so if you went out and did karaoke with sam, what kind of song would you sing? allen: i would sing something very easy. so far, i have never gone handle -- and i broke one of your rules. the boss is allowed to go, but only stay for 30 minutes, which i did not know. sam: kind of a true rule that you would imagine for a lot of functions. you want to get out of things before they get too risque or dicey. it puts everybody in an uncomfortable position. carol: last time i heard it risque or dicey, that is when i left. ellen pollack, sam, thank you very much. we really appreciate it. issueall in this week's

of "bloomberg businessweek." thank you so much for joining us. we'll see you next week. ♪

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